Sure, there are differences between the lives of most of our dogs and the lives of the Queen of England’s dogs, but there are probably more similarities than differences. (And if your dogs have recently been filmed with the Queen and Daniel Craig as James Bond for a short piece shown in the opening ceremonies of the Olympics[4], perhaps your dogs have even more in common with the royal dogs than most canines do.)

Unfortunately, the Queen’s dogs were recently part of an incident that shows all too well how similar the lives of dogs can be. The Queen’s dogs were in a dogfight in which they attacked and injured Max[5], an 11-year old Norfolk Terrier belonging to Princess Beatrice. Only a small percentage of dogs behave aggressively, but when they do, their behavior often follows predictable patterns.

In the incident with the royal dogs, many of the things that happened are common when dogs fight. One is that it happened in a corridor, in this case one within Balmoral Castle. While the corridors in this palatial dwelling are larger than the hallway in a typical home, they are still more confining than many rooms or the great outdoors, and many dogfights happen when dogs are inside in narrow spaces.

The fight involved many dogs who apparently got very excited. It’s often the case that large groups of dogs become overly aroused and that can lead to aggression. According to reports, the Queen’s dog boy (a title that presumably sounds odd to most Americans, including me) lost control of the dogs. It’s not unusual for a person to be unable to prevent a fight, even if they are very attentive to dogs and skilled with them. It happens so fast that fights are always described in the past tense as in, “And then he bit her!” or “And the next thing I knew, it was a big fight!”

In this fight, Max was quite badly hurt, needing veterinary care for a number of bites, including a badly torn ear that bled a lot. Ears are often damaged to varying degrees in dogfights, and when that happens, there’s almost always a lot of blood. It’s also common for one dog in a large fight to receive the lion’s share of the injuries, which is what apparently happened to Max. (I don’t mean to imply that it’s unusual for multiple dogs to be hurt and even hurt badly, because that happens sometimes, too.)

Finally, this incident was upsetting to the guardians of all the dogs. Naturally, we expect the person whose dog sustained the worst injuries to experience horrible feelings, and Princess Beatrice was clearly distressed by what happened to Max. On the other hand, in my work, I often see the people whose dog was the aggressor, so I know how devastating it is to people when the dog they love hurts someone, and the Queen is said to be devastated by what happened.